December 2003

1st December 2003

Switch Car are advertising like crazy on Radio City at the moment, with their irritating (and unfortunately catchy) jingle: “# Make the switch, make the switch, make the switch… Switch Car! #”

One of their ads has “voxpop” clips of customers extolling the virtues of the dealership. Now, I’m not saying that these people are actors pretending to be customers or anything, but according to one featured couple: “You can bring your kids, it’s a real day out!”

7th December 2003

Looks like someone has sent out a spam message with my e-mail address as the Reply-To, so for the last few days I’ve been deluged with “Undeliverable” return messages. Great :-/

Some good news: I have a pair of trousers which I really like but have been unable to wear because I’m too big and fat and rotund. Today, however, I managed to squeeze into them! Hurrah, the two-pronged assault of diet plus gym is working!

OK, so not the most earth-shattering news ever. But it’s important to me and frankly, that’s all that matters.

8th December 2003

12th December 2003

You know, I can’t remember the last time I was truly happy. I mean really happy, not the sort of happiness that comes at someone else’s expense, or the fleeting feeling of cheerfulness when you hear a funny joke on TV.

Where does one go to find happiness? I’ve been searching for years without any success, so if anyone knows, please let me in on the secret. :-(

13th December 2003

I suppose I should explain last night’s entry. I was feeling more miserable than usual, because it was one of those times when I look objectively at my life and see nothing but an empty meaningless existence with nothing to look forward to. I really should look at fixing that sometime.

Against my better judgment, I went to the office Christmas party on Friday night. It was a swanky affair; unfortunately it was swanky with a silent ‘s’. I have an awful, tedious job, and it’s bad enough having to endure most of my coworkers for eight hours a day. In the evening, when most of them have had too much to drink? No thanks.

So after 20 minutes of pretending to be having a good time, I gave up, excused myself and came home. So I watched Have I Got News for You (Boris Johnson, yay!), then put on my DVD of Beautiful Thing. It’s a good film — hard to believe the same writer came up with the utterly crap Gimme Gimme Gimme.

24th December 2003

RISC OS is a very efficient operating system. Shame the people who sell it aren’t as good. I just got a letter from RISCOS Ltd which is dated 9th September, but the franked envelope is marked 22.12.03!

Fortunately it wasn’t anything urgent, but the idea that a letter to me sat on someone’s desk for three and a half months is not a reassuring one.

Seb’s having a full-blown Daily Mail Moment about people who try to ban Christmas imagery for fear of offending people — he’s even used the cliched "Political Correctness Gone Mad" headline!

It is a legitimate point, of course, but in general I don’t think "Christmas-phobia" is as widespread as the hysterical tabloids would have us think. I have, however, noticed that stupid, meaningless Americanism "Happy Holidays" creeping in a lot this year.

26th December 2003

I got the new Have I Got News For You Guest Presenters DVD for Christmas, and can now prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Paul Merton is psychic. From a show earlier this year comes this exchange about the Mars Beagle probe:-

Today I used the bus to visit a couple of friends. Normally, even on a Sunday, I can have my pick of 6 buses an hour, or a fairly fast, frequent train serice. Today being Boxing Day however, there were no trains running and only two buses per hour. Every bus a single decker, and all of them packed full.

I was fortunate and managed to get on board, but at every stop more people piled on, until eventually the driver had to turn away passengers, who presumably had to wait half an hour for another bus which would probably be just as full.

This is, of course, one of those days when the powers that be tell us there’s “no demand” for public transport. :-/

28th December 2003

Four days off work, and I’ve regressed into my unemployed state: I’m staying in bed until 11.30am and not bothering to get dressed until 1pm. It’s going to be one hell of a wrench going back on 2nd January (unless they’ll let me go into work wearing pyjamas at 11.30am).

In other news, I have a £10 gift voucher for figleaves.com, the internet underwear store. However, I have to spend £40 or more to take advantage of this offer. I’m not sure I can spend that much on underwear. Although they do sell thongs…